Respond to Us vs US ( by Seth Godin, http://sethgodin.typepad.com)

Although it is a very interesting theory to consider that if we are part of something we will not hurt it, unfortunately it’s not always true. Consider those who in order to get larger paycheck indirectly hurt their company’s business or those who are part of a group but consider to work the minimum amount because they rather be part of their private life first.

For example, let’s examine banking industry. In general, the more risk banks take the higher their revenue will be. However taking high risks, will jeopardize the company in the long run. Now consider the options that a mid level trader who is about to retire in two years has at that particular time. He can either take high risks and get paid well before he reties and careless about the future of his bank or he can play it safe and get his average paycheck. What is he going to do?

As you have mentioned in your blog, there are billions of anonymous people interacting with each other everyday which causes one very big problem: You will not be heard unless you are very LOUD or exciting. Imagine a room filled with one thousand people where everyone is talking (or texting,) and you want to capture people’s attention because you have something very important to say. what do you do? well the obvious answer is to shout or scream at the beginning but to keep their attention you have to talk about a very important topic or simply do some attention grabbing stuff, such as exaggerating or lying. This is one of the biggest problems with social media and marketing blogs today. Many participants of social media would do ANYTHING to keep people’s attention. Even big brands exaggerate their product’s capabilities by making fun (and often irrelevant) advertisements.